November 2016

We encourage our members to look to the Indiana AFL-CIO endorsements for guidance in other races, including U.S. Senate, state legislative districts, and State Superintendent of Schools.

Indiana Voter ID Law: Know Your Rights!

You must bring a government-issued photo ID with you to vote. To be eligible to vote, your ID must:

Include a photo of you.

Conform with your name on the voter registration record. Conform does NOT mean identical.

Be issued by the State of Indiana or the U.S. Government.

Have an expiration date and still be current OR have expired after November 4, 2014.

Certain military IDs with no expiration date are acceptable.

In most cases, an Indiana driver license, Indiana state ID card, military ID, or U.S. passport are acceptable.

If you do not have your photo ID or run into other problems, you should request a provisional ballot. You will have until noon on November 18 to provide documentation and/or your photo ID to support your ballot.

If you have a problem at the polls, call the national Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).

The coalition delivered a letter to Legacy Healthcare (see below) demanding the immediate reinstatement of the workers without any retribution. The workers, mostly women of color who earn poverty level wages, had been faithfully working at the nursing home between 5 and 20 years.

The nursing home workers have been in contract bargaining for over a year and are fighting for a fair and living wage of $15 an hour and more resources to improve quality patient care.

But instead of bargaining in good faith and paying their workers more, The Grove of Northbrook chose to swiftly terminate the nursing home workers and to leave other staff members and residents in a difficult and compromising position with such upheaval. Advocates also expressed concern about the potential of short staffing and unsafe working conditions that could compromise quality resident care.

Several advocates left open the possibility of further protests and potentially legal action against The Grove of Northbrook if the nursing home did not correct this injustice against these workers.

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LETTER

On behalf of the organizations listed below, we stand in solidarity with the 20 hard-working employees you have recently and unjustly terminated from your facility at The Grove of Northbrook. Your actions harmed these workers’ livelihoods.

These workers at your nursing home do some of the hardest and most important work in our society, providing care for some of our most vulnerable citizens. But despite their hard work and dedication they were treated callously and unfairly by your organization. We simply cannot and will not stand idly by and allow these kinds of abuses to happen to workers and their families.

Members of our coalition and respective organizations are grateful for the service and quality care that these nursing home workers have been providing, some even as long as 20 years. We find it utterly deplorable that you might have unjustly, and potentially illegally, targeted and terminated these workers based on their race and national origin.

We demand that you do what is morally right and immediately bring back all 20 employees and defend their right to work at The Grove of Northbrook.

We look forward to hearing from you that you have taken swift action to correct this injustice. Please respond promptly to Tim Bell, Executive Director at Chicago Workers Collaborative at, tbell@chicagoworkerscollaborative.org, by next Wednesday, November 9th to confirm that you have resolved this urgent matter.

Our coalition is ready to stand in solidarity with these workers until this issue is resolved and they are treated with the dignity and respect these nursing home workers rightly deserve.

ELECTION DAY IS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8

It’s time to get out and vote – do you have a plan to make sure your voice counts?
There is simply too much at stake to sit on the sidelines this November 8, so step up, make your plan to vote, and then make sure you follow through and get out to the polls on Election Day!

In 19th Month of Bargaining, Training and Health Insurance Restored For Thousands of Caregivers

CHICAGO-Facing arbitration, the Bruce Rauner administration on Tuesday capitulated and restored health insurance and training for state child care workers and home healthcare personal assistants who care for more than 100,000 children and people with disabilities.

SEIU Healthcare Illinois has been at the bargaining table for 19 months without a collective bargaining agreement for more than 50,000 child care and home healthcare workers and Rauner has attempted to strip these workers of training and health insurance, as well as impose a freeze to wages already at or near the poverty level.

The Rauner administration illegally stopped making payments into the workers’ healthcare and training funds on July 1, 2015. SEIU Healthcare obtained a restraining order last fall restoring the health insurance contributions, but the vital training programs had been suspended since last year.

The Illinois Labor Relations Board last month issued an unfair labor complaint alleging that the administration wrongly implemented policies capping overtime hours for caregivers in the Home Services Program who provide for people with disabilities.

The Health Fund provides healthcare to thousands of the 50,000 child care and home healthcare workers who care for roughly 30,000 people with disabilities, as well as more than 70,000 children of working parents. The Training Fund has trained more than 20,000 home care and child care providers, who garnered critical skills that improve the quality of care to the people they serve.

The union filed a grievance over the state’s illegal actions and, in the face of probable defeat in arbitration scheduled in mid-September, the Rauner administration opted to settle the case Tuesday.

SEIU Healthcare Illinois Vice President Terri Harkin, who has been part of the bargaining talks with the Rauner administration, said:

“Our workforce, a vast majority of whom are women and people of color, has been under constant attack by Bruce Rauner in his attempt to dismantle the social safety net that has been stitched with care in bipartisan fashion over the years.

“Denying our members training and health insurance was a particularly unconscionable act that not only harmed our workforce, but also the children and people with disabilities for whom they care.

“Our workers deserve a fair contract and to be treated with respect and dignity and certainly not be subjected to illegal insults that put their livelihoods at risk. Bruce Rauner has an opportunity in this moment to step back from his radical position and, after 19 brutal months, enter a fair collective bargaining agreement with our workforce.”